> > So feel free to condemn those environments and > users > > as some kind of > > hackers. There are a lot of them out there using > > Linux that might be better > > off on Solaris. My question, though, is that if > > Solaris continues to work > > for your 'real' sysadmins, what's wrong with it > > being accessible and usable > > by the 'hackers' too? > > Thank you.
My doubt is to what degree mere numbers of those whose experience or knowledge is limited to Linux are worth attracting. In the long run, maybe numbers are needed for mind-share. But in the short run, unless Solaris meets their expectations out-of-the-box by default (a disgusting concept IMO, although perhaps different packaging and defaults are a good excuse for another distro, although I'll always think both personalities ought to be trivially available regardless, with the means of packaging, distribution, and the default behavior the main differences), they're going to be disappointed anyway. You see, I think many (not all, of course) have limited themselves into thinking Linux is a superset of Unix (or indeed simply the only thing that matters), which it isn't by a long shot. So I wonder whether merely giving them a few (or even a lot of) familiar command and keystroke convieniences will encourage them to start writing application code portable enough that it goes from Linux to Solaris anywhere near as easily as much code typically goes in the opposite direction. And _no_way_ do I want to see a bunch of Linux APIs adopted wholesale, although some of them may well represent useful ideas (or at least harmless ones perhaps worthwhile to ease porting), esp. in the areas of audio, networking, and maybe tape I/O. But unless all this accomodation gets us a bunch of apps that are not only kewl but reliable and maintainable, I doubt it will have been worth much. This message posted from opensolaris.org _______________________________________________ opensolaris-discuss mailing list opensolaris-discuss@opensolaris.org
